joe part 01
“I wanted to redecorate anyway.”
We’re staring phlegmatically at the bathroom. The toilet is gone, the floor tiles are smashed and broken where it used to sit. Someone has gouged out a chunk of external wall to make space for the upgrade. Downstairs, some trunking in the kitchen has been broken apart, and then it was discovered that it would have to be enlarged to allow for the new, larger pipe. The patio out the back has had a couple of rows of flags pulled up to make space for a channel exposing the wastewater pipe, due to be upgraded tomorrow.
“You could have put the new one in the garage?”
I laugh at the image, and you smile in response and slip your arm around my waist. “That would do very weird things to the resale value of this house.”
“You’re thinking of selling?”
I go quiet for a moment, still smiling and looking at my poor bathroom’s gaping wound. My arm slides around your waist too, and I get the better end of the deal: when I give you a squeeze, your pudge squishes warmly between my fingers.
“I’m not going to live here forever.”
We make friends with the neighbours and use their facilities while our own are upgraded. I absolutely forbid you from eating mother, father or daughter. You grin a lot whenever you have to head over there, so in the end I insist we spend a few days at your place till the work’s done at mine.
“Olympic athletes can burn up to 10 000 Calories per day,” I said, the day after your slip-up. I was reading from a refill pad covered in our notes. “That’s for rowing, swimming; things like that.” I put down the pad and stare into space, perhaps seeing numbers scroll down the empty wall in front of me. “Fancy getting a pool membership?”
You’re sunning yourself on the sunchair I set up in the back garden and I’m sprawled across the grass, as is my habit. I don’t really do chairs, preferring floors wherever possible.
“Whatever you think is best.” Your belly jiggles when you slap it. A thought occurs and you turn to look at me, peering through your sunglasses. “Aren’t you worried about letting a shark loose in the pool?”
I consult another piece of paper. “So long as you restrict yourself to children below the age of ten, at a rate of… one per three days? … Then you’re still—”
“Hang on.” You sit up, rucking the pudge in your middle. “You have a table of child nutritional information?”
But I’m only grinning at you. “Of course not.” I let my eyes rove from your calves, which have retained their shape basically unchanged, up your whole figure, alighting in the end on your smirk. “… Couldn’t find any data. What?”
“You surprise me, is all.” You lay back down, and reach for a glass that tinkles the disappointing ice-song of “empty”. Your stomach rumbles, quiet and low, like a truck a few streets over. A different song of empty, and slightly more menacing.
I’m up, taking the glass from you before you have to ask. The hand I take it from hooks a beckoning finger. Unsure, I offer the glass back. You grip my wrist and bring it to your lips. One fang punctures the skin with practised smoothness. My vein blossoms in a slow, savoury mouthful; then another, then another.
The wound closes to a kiss. You sigh through your nose, tasting the gift of my blood across your palette, then release me.
Ice clinks as adrenaline causes my hand to tremor slightly. I may actually be blushing, too. “Thank you.”
“Food doesn’t normally thank me.” You lean back, luxuriating in the heat as I gurgle into your depths. A barest morsel, but it’s something. “Think it’s time for gin.”
“Ah.” I step lightly toward the kitchen. “Maybe later I can shake you about and fizz you up. I know tonic makes you burp.”
You call me out of the blue while I’m between meetings. I pick up on the third ring and you start speaking in a low, urgent voice.
“I didn’t bring lunch and now I’m surrounded by children and staff.”
Ah, yes, a trial day? Not a good day to leave behind the lunch I put together.
“Okay—how are you feeling?”
“Like form 10B might just about be enough. I need something. Soon.”
You can’t see my pleased smile, but perhaps you can hear it in my voice. You called. “Okay, maybe we’ve been cutting too sharply. Let me check the spreadsheet— you know what? We can handle whatever. I’m glad you called. You get a pass. Pick up something tasty when you can.”
“Really?” You sound so excited on the phone. I just want to give you a hug right there and then.
“Yeah. Although not someone as big as the last guy, please.”
“Diet human,” you suggest. I can tell your attention is only half on me. You’re probably scanning a crowd.
“Person lite,” I offer. “Enjoy yourself, Rey. See you tonight?”
“Maybe,” you say, still distracted. “Tummy rub sounds nice. Gotta fill it first, though.”
“Happy hunting. Meeting’s starting. Talk later!”
You’re already gone.
“Maybe” turns into “probably not”, turns into “something’s not right”. If you’d caught a snack and were home there’s no way you wouldn’t be checking your phone. I flit from hobby to book to cooking, worried and unable to focus on any one thing.
My WhatsApp messages get blue ticks all at once. Good, you’re alive. I watch the typing-dots appear, disappear, appear, disappear. I shortcut things:
You okay?
A pause, and then:
I slipped up. Drink Drunk Full
I bite my bottom lip, letting the wave of emotion pass over me. Relief, disappointment, excitement, anger—I flit through them all. When it’s through, I follow up:
You’re okay, though?
Ya. Can’t really nice *move Autocorrect
Where are you? I’m coming through.
(( Had to assume whose house “going home with” meant :) ))
I pull up outside a weird little detached house abutting a row of terraces. It’s like the pariah house: identical to the others but they don’t want to touch it.
You’re sitting in the doorway, back to the frame, one leg hanging out onto the street. If you smoked you’d surely have lit up. You manage a half-smile when you see me, and wave a glass of something amber.
“Raven, this wasn’t part of the plan…”
“I got confused! Or… hungry, or drunk. One of— hi-URK.”
“You weren’t confused. You knew full well you’d ‘slipped up’ when you sent that message. Why didn’t you call me?”
You frown, petulant like a child. “You’d have said no.”
“You’re damn right I would! Look at you!”
Ro and Joe together make for a perfect packing of your entire front. Ro is spread more or less evenly through your intestines, curiosity having ended her bright future in stinking, cloying darkness. Joe’s body is only just beginning to soften inside the noisy meatginder of your gut. So broken, he appears boneless, providing massive packing on the upper half of your belly.
It’s an awesome sight. You can read in my eyes the conflict between anger and pleasure.
“Don’t tell me you don’t love it. Come over here and rub my belly.”
I remain standing beside the car. You’re drunk but you’re not wrong. I can’t give in to the desire, though. You wouldn’t respect the rules we agreed.
Instead I walk up to where you’re lounging and squat down to eye level. Your smug smile at having enticed me slips as you realise I’m not falling for it. Your mouth opens to release an airy burp. “Like it?”
“You can’t lose control like this, Rey. Not when we’re so close.”
“I was hungry.”
“I was so pleased when you called me earlier. It’s disappointing you cheated after another meal anyway.”
“I was hungry.” But your face shows your shame, and you look away.
“Rey, look at me.” I wait till you talk yourself into making eye contact again. When you finally do, I’m stern but measured. “You’re going to have to make it up to me. You’re going to have to be punished again.”
“No!” You push yourself into the doorframe like you’re trying to get away. “No, not the plug again!”
I shake my head. “No, not that. You’re going to have to make it up to me this time. Come on. Let me take you home. You need to sober up, first.”
You flinch and rub your tummy where a splintered nub of exposed humerus scrapes your stomach wall. It elicits another hiccup. Then you take my proferred hand. Together we haul you to your feet and put you in the car. The passenger seat can take you this time, barely.
I’m stony quiet in the car, giving minimal responses to your pleas and apologies. The only major speech I give is when you say, “do you hate me now?” I look at you and give a sad smile, before turning eyes back to the road.
“It’s not possible for me to hate you. You are sublime.”
“Then why punishment?” you whine.
“You asked me for help. And you, my sublime Raven, are extraordinarily greedy. So I’m going to give you my help.”
You didn’t say much for the rest of the trip.
I sat you down, gave you water and vitamin tablets. With insistent pressure I examined your belly, pressing along the torturous alleyways of your intestines, finding the colon, stroking along its length. You moaned once and I stopped. That wasn’t for your pleasure.
“Go to bed. Do not touch yourself, your body belongs to me till the punishment is over. Do not go to the toilet. If you do I will hurt you. Do you understand?”
You nod, suddenly less sleepy then the stuffed gut and alcohol had been making you.
“Good girl. Now go to bed.”
You lever yourself off the couch, dragging your melting contents with you. “You’re not coming to bed?”
“I need a little time.”
That night you hear drilling in the spare room.
Morning.
That strange probing massage again. My fingertips find the outline of Ro in your colon. Knocking on the back-door. You shift in discomfort. I unlock a shuddering fart, making you blush and his your head behind your hands.
“I think you’re ready.”
You shake your head but I only kissed you on the forehead in response.
“Do I still have yellow and red?”
I stiffen, then nod, sharply. “Yes. I’m punishing you, and I need you to accept this punishment. And it might hurt. But I don’t want to damage you. Yellow and red keep you safe and that makes me happy. Understand?”
“I think so. But I’m really sorry.”
“I know.” I kiss your forehead again. “But I need more.”
Rope appears. I indicate that you should hold out your hand together. After a moment you do. I perform a swift double-column tie around one wrist and draw them both together. A cinch takes up any slack. I tug on the remaining rope to guide you to standing. You must roll your hips to generate the momentum needed to lift your two mushy passengers.
The spare room has a bike lock drilled into the floor. Next to it the spare mattress is made up with white linens.
We enter and I slip the rope through the thick metal loop of the bike lock. You’re forced to kneel. Kneeling, the bottom of your belly feels cold where it hangs down to the floor.
The rope is tied back to the rope handcuffs. I stand and step back, watching you. When you attempt to pull free the handcuffs don’t give and don’t tighten. There’s no hope of moving far from the bike lock. I seem satisfied.
“Your punishment ends whenever you like. You only have to shit out your prey.”
“In here?!” You look around the room. Posters and pictures look back at you. My work desk is tidy but in-use. The camera on my laptop has a little blue light next to it, recording. A family photo in the corner of the room smiles down at you.
“Yep. In the meantime, you’re going to make it up to me. I’m going to use you however I see fit. Because you’re right. I do love your body. I want you so much I can hardly breathe. But that doesn’t change the fact you should have called me that second time.”
You try to straighten up, forgetting that you’re tied to a hoop on the floor, and get tugged back down onto all fours. “‘Call Andrew if I feel like I need to cheat’.”
That gets a smile from me. “Good. How are you feeling?”
“Like I need to go to the bathroom,” you say, with some venom.
I laugh. “Even better. Are you going to shit here in a nice pile, like a naughty family pet?”
“Fuck no.”
“You’ve got to go sometime, Raven. Those two inside you have to come out. Don’t you think they deserve freedom?”
“They won’t ever get it. Even after I crap them out, their souls stay with me.” You see me stiffen like I’ve been struck. You know how to get a reaction from me. “She drowned in minutes. A scared little child lost in a black ocean. Him, I took my time with. He died so quickly I wanted to feel him a little longer. He came apart while I finished what he started, fucking myself with my fingers and my tendrils.”
“Kneel here,” I say, voice strained. You got a reaction alright. I throw off my jeans, hard as you’ve ever seen me. High on the power reversal you straighten up. When I stride towards you you swallow me to the root. Hot velvet fills your mouth, making you long for the fulfillment of more flesh, deeper. I seem to know what you’re thinking, reading your wicked intent in your eyes trained on me. Go on, says my wild expression. My hands are gentle on the back of your head, guiding you forward and back. Go on and take all of me. Make me yours.
You must have really got to me because it’s no time between sliding me between your lips and swallowing me down. I shudder like a man being electrocuted as a small part of me drains down into that furnace of a gut, adding a small part to your already overloaded alimentary canal.
You lick your lips and present me with a wide-open mouth, tongue rolled out. “All gone.”
“Wicked,” I say, dropping to my knees and taking you into my arms. “You are perfect.”
“Untie me now?” you say with a mischievous wiggle of your growing arse.
I laugh and place a kiss on your cheek. “Oh, no. You decide when I untie you. I’ll be downstairs for a while, until I decide to use you again. In the meantime, you think about what you’ve done.”
A lesser man would burn to coal beneath your glare but I merely rise, bow, and close the door.
The boredom makes it hard to ignore the growing pressure. All of Ro and some of Joe are now beginning to crowd your backed-up guts. You shuffle around trying to relieve the ache but your tied hands make it difficult to get comfortable.
You hear me ascend the stairs. I walk past the door and go to another room on some mysterious errand. Then you hear my footsteps descending again.
You can’t crap in front of a picture of my grandma. You just can’t.